A classic backlist Dalgliesh thriller brought back onto the Faber list - this is the tenth in the series.

P. D. James was born in Oxford in 1920 and educated at Cambridge High School for Girls.From 1949 to 1968 she worked in the National Health Service and subsequently in the Home Office, first in the Police Department and later in the Criminal Policy Department.All that experience has been used in her novels.She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and of the Royal Society of Arts and has served as a Governor of the BBC, a member of the Arts Council, where she was Chairman of the Literary Advisory Panel, on the Board of the British Council and as a magistrate in Middlesex and London.She has won awards for crime writing in Britain, America, Italy and Scandinavia, including the Mystery Writers of America Grandmaster Award.She has received honorary degrees from seven British universities, was awarded an OBE in 1983 and was created a life peer in 1991.In 1997 she was elected President of the Society of Authors.